Baltimore Sun Obit

Christian Godwin – baltimoresun.com

baltimoresun.com

Christian Godwin

Copy editor was a fourth-generation newsman whose work under pressure earned him the nickname ‘Capt. Deadline’

By Frederick N. Rasmussen | fred.rasmussen@baltsun.com

September 15, 2009

Christian “Chris” Godwin, a veteran newspaper copy editor who earned the sobriquet “Capt. Deadline” from newsroom colleagues during his more-than-30-year career, died Saturday of metastatic cancer at Hospice of Queen Anne’s County in Centreville.

He was 49 and lived in Dover, Del.

Mr. Godwin, a fourth-generation newsman, was born in Miami, and moved with his family to Anchorage, Alaska, where his father was an FBI agent and his mother was an editor on The Anchorage Times.

While a 14-year-old student at East Anchorage High School, Mr. Godwin began working as a copyboy for the Associated Press bureau chief in Anchorage.

He attended the University of Alaska-Anchorage and then went to work as a reporter for The Anchorage Times. He was later promoted to copy editor.

“He said one of the best moments of his career was when his managing editor, a veteran newsman, called Chris the best copy editor he had ever seen,” said his mother, Connie Godwin of Chestertown.

Also, while in Anchorage, Mr. Godwin worked as the stadium announcer for the Anchorage Glacier Pilots, one of the National Baseball Congress teams then made up of college players from schools across the nation.

In 1980, Mr. Godwin moved to Chestertown, enrolled in Washington College, and after attending college for a couple of years, joined the staff of the Delaware State News in Dover, Del., in the early 1990s.

During the 1980s, Mr. Godwin experienced a year-long bout with Guillain-Barre Syndrome and confronted his alcoholism.

He attended a Delaware state-sponsored alcohol rehabilitation program for a year and became an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

“Chris recently celebrated 20 years of sobriety,” his mother said.

He left the Delaware State News to edit a weekly, The Leader and State Register in Sussex County, Del., for several years before returning in 1999 as a copy editor.

“When I heard that Chris was coming back I did cartwheels,” said Andrew West, the newspaper’s managing editor.

“He loved being a copy editor and I’m not sure you can say that about too many people, but for Chris it was a perfect fit. He was a go-getter and he could catch mistakes left and right in copy,” he said. “He loved the notion that each day you started from scratch and you wove pieces of the paper together and at the end of the day, you had a product.”

Mr. West praised his colleague’s “irreverent sense of humor.”

He recalled an incident when a truck loaded with lima beans was involved in a fiery collision with a Delaware toll both, which resulted in plenty of damage but no loss of life.

In writing up a brief on the accident, Mr. Godwin included, “Good news for kids. Lima beans a total loss.”

Craig Horleman, a fellow copy editor, was also a Dover neighbor.

“He always had a smile on his face and continued to make jokes even when under deadline pressure,” Mr. Horleman said. “When push came to shove, he was the guy who was able to tie it all together. That’s why we called him ‘Capt. Deadline.’ “

Mr. Godwin, who was respected for his knowledge of history and sports, was also an “old-fashioned grammarian,” his mother said, who was never too busy to help young staffers.

Mr. Godwin was an avid reader and loved different types of music.

He also enjoyed doing puzzles.

Because of his illness, Mr. Godwin stopped working in April, but he continued to remain as engaged as possible with his newspaper and relished hearing the latest newsroom gossip, Mr. Horleman said.

He also began a blog which he named, “Like the future, only shorter,” to keep in touch with friends and associates and to deal in a candid matter with the cancer that would take his life.

His longtime girlfriend, Jeanne Shinn, 47, an auditor who lived in Bear, Del., was diagnosed in July with two golf-ball-sized brain tumors.

“This was like a Greek tragedy,” Mrs. Godwin said. “She was buried the same day Chris died.”

A celebration of Mr. Godwin’s life will be held at 2 p.m Oct. 12 at Fellows, Helfenbein, and Newnam Funeral Home, 130 Speer Road, Chestertown.

Also surviving are his father, Stuart Godwin of Chestertown; a brother, Mark Godwin of Des Moines; a sister, Mary-Stuart Godwin O’Connor of Des Moines; a nephew and two nieces. A brief early marriage ended in divorce.

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